The Vienna Convention is a very, very slender ladder down which to retreat
The precedents seem unfavourable to Brexiteer ambitions and it isn’t even obvious that it applies to UK-EU relations at all.
Henry Hill is an award-winning centre-right blogger and assistant editor of ConservativeHome.
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The precedents seem unfavourable to Brexiteer ambitions and it isn’t even obvious that it applies to UK-EU relations at all.
They are much less divided over whether to do the same to the Brexiteer rebels against the Withdrawal Agreement: definitely not.
Almost two thirds of the parliamentary Conservative Party opposed it, alongside the DUP and a handful of others.
By longstanding convention the Speaker casts his vote for the status quo. But would he?
Halfon and Stevenson join the Europhile ultras in a very near miss for the Government.
Cooper/Letwin is back, supported by Labour and Tory Europhiles as well as the Liberal Democrats, the Independent Group, and Scottish and Welsh nationalists.
There’s a Conservative/Labour/Democratic Unionist push to rule out a second referendum and Benn leads the charge for Cooper/Letwin.
Also: Tory MPs lead the charge against prosecutions of ex-servicemen who served in Ulster; Ulster Unionist leader savages DUP; and more.
As a free vote, this may give us the clearest picture of the divisions at the very top of the Party over how to approach Brexit.
Several Ministers helped to see off the Government’s best hope of avoiding a full-on crisis in the Party – and perhaps of saving Brexit too.
There aren’t any surprises here, although on a grim night the Government at least appear to have talked two of its original signatories out of backing it.
In addition to ‘Malthouse II’ and the Spelman/Dromey Amendment are several tabled by the Independent Group and nationalist parties.
The Attorney General is asking difficult legal questions about it which Dublin, Brussels, and even many in London would rather draw a veil over.
May is so weak that even her command of the payroll vote is slipping. If her Government loses control of European policy, can it really remain in office?
Also: Ministers brace for fight with SNP over ‘Stronger Towns Fund’; Scottish Government backpedalling hard on welfare devolution; and more.